


I Come To Her At Night

by sparrow2000



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-02-01 01:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12693819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow2000/pseuds/sparrow2000
Summary: Many years after Chosen, Xander considers his life





	I Come To Her At Night

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Angst  
> Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy et al own everything. I own nothing  
> Beta extraordinaire as always: thismaz  
> Written for the spook_me ficathon 2017  
> Prompt: Plant  
> Comments are cuddled and called George

I come to her at night.

Sometimes the path is short and sometimes long. Sometimes I walk. Sometimes drive. But in my heart, my lizard brain, my bones, I’m on my knees. I crawl.

She smiles. Her hands trace the contours of my face, fingers running through my hair. She kisses my eyelid and licks across my eyepatch, whispering words of benediction and blasphemous prayer.

The rain batters on the windows and candles, thick and yellow, bathe the room in soft, sick light and she sways to the music from the old Victrola that’s nestled in the empty fireplace.

Tonight, Artie Shaw begins the Beguine and we foxtrot in and out of pillars twined with Christmas lights with crimson bulbs. She leads, because of course she leads. I follow and we trip and giggle and lose ourselves in the music.

Sometimes we dance together, sometimes she dances alone. Last night we swayed to Ella Fitzgerald’s Cry Me a River. She clung to me. Her tears soaked through the collar of my shirt and her nails dug into my back and drew blood.

The night before she had headphones on and bounced to Iggy Pop and Lust for Life. She has, you know. A lust for life. She embraces it. She lives it through her music. Nina Simone singing I Put a Spell on You. Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit. She sings along and then falls silent, eyes lost in memories she’ll never share. She laughs and claps her hands in time with Bobby McFerrin grooving to Hush Little Baby with Yo-Yo Ma. She shows me things - in her head, her heart and what she sees when she stares at the stars. She whispers, cautious of strangers, but never cautious of me.

She sees me. She sees the hurt and the loss and the pain. She sees the boy and the man. She says she can taste the Hellmouth on my skin. The dust of Africa in my hair. The acrid edge of pointlessness that comes with yet another dead slayer, on the tip of my tongue.

She has a pitcher plant in a black pot on the window sill. She feeds it flies and croons to it. She plays it music. It likes the Beach Boys and Glenn Miller, and she swears it grew an inch the night the Stones sang Paint It Black. She pets it. It is her pet in return. 

Drusilla is my pitcher plant. She has swallowed me piece, by piece, by piece and I wallow, complicit in my own absorption. Soon there will be nothing left.

The Victrola plays and Ella sings. Dru sways and the pitcher plant sits on the window sill in its black pot and the rain bashes against the windows. She smiles at me and extends her hand, nails gleaming scarlet in the candlelight. 

I hold the tips of her fingers, tender, and we dance. Tomorrow I’ll come to her at night and we will paint it black. Then I will surrender. Finally. Inevitably. My soul, hers for the taking. 

Then every song will be a new lyric and every dance, a new step. A new skin. A new sensation.

Then I’ll be with her at night.

 

Fin

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N** : The soundtrack to this fic is as follows:
> 
> Artie Shaw: [Begin the Beguine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCXVxE_YeP4)   
> Ella Fitzgerald: [Cry Me A River](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW_burnLm7w)   
> Nina Simone: [I Put a Spell on You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua2k52n_Bvw)   
> Billie Holiday: [Strange Fruit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Web007rzSOI)   
> Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma: [Hush Little Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK9vfyMukPA)   
> The Rolling Stones: [Paint It Black](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvsBImfmP28)


End file.
